The cleaning of textile machines has for some time been accomplished through the use of traveling pneumatic cleaners. Such cleaners, as known to persons skilled in the arts of textile manufacturing, direct high velocity streams of air onto textile machines and textile products being processed thereon for dislodging fiber waste from the machines. Such traveling pneumatic cleaners include one or more fans arranged for travel over textile machines and a housing surrounding the fan and defining air flow passages.
Recent legislation concerning occupational safety and health has established standards concerning levels of noise in work environments and has led to efforts at controlling noise generated by textile machines. As analysis of noise to be found in a textile machine room has been undertaken, it has been discovered that operators tending textile machines may, in some instances, be exposed to impingement of noise generated by a traveling pneumatic cleaner and particularly by the fan of such a cleaner.